The Top 5 IoT Hacks

The Internet of Things (IoT) automates your lives by connecting everything around you from your cars to your homes to even your bodies.

- Ankita K.S.

On the other side of the spectrum is the concern for the safety and security of your data. All data is interconnected, which reduces the efforts needed by hackers to hack the entire system.

A large number of Internet-connected devices lack even the most basic cyber security protocols, making these hackable in minutes. And even though most secure and trusted machines give hackers a tough time, one tiny loophole is sufficient for them to steal your data. In fact, Intel’s prediction for threats in 2017 includes IoT malware that will open backdoors into the connected home that could go undetected for years!

To add to the fear, there are a lot of such IoT hacks that have been reported in the recent past. Let us take a look at five of these.

You are on the driving seat, but it is not you who is driving

Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, automotive cyber security researchers, have proved that hacking Jeeps is child’s play for them, especially because all carmakers are doing their best to turn an automobile into a smartphone. Uconnect, an Internet-connected computer feature in hundreds of thousands of Fiat Chrysler cars, sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and trucks, controls the vehicles’ entertainment and navigation, enables phone calls and offers Wi-Fi hot spots. Uconnect’s mobile connection lets anyone who knows the car’s Internet Protocol (IP) address gain access from anywhere in the world.

In 2015, the duo attacked a Jeep over the Internet, from a distance of around 15 kilometres. They toyed with the air-conditioning, radio and windshield wipers, disabled brakes at low speeds and managed to paralyse the vehicle. This made Chrysler announce for a recall of 1.4 million vehicles and fix the vulnerabilities. But now these researchers have come out with better hacking tricks.